This invention relates generally to a waterproof body for cautery devices, and a method for assembling the same. More specifically this invention relates to a waterproof, disposable, non-reusable cautery body for hand-held cautery devices of either the fixed temperature variety or the variable temperature variety.
A cautery is a commonly used medical device with a hand-held component with a wire loop at its tip end. Electricity is run through the wire tips causing the tip to be hot. The hot tip is used to seal small blood vessels that are cut in the process of surgery. Permanent re-usable cauteries have a hand-held component which is connected by an electric cord to a permanent electric power source.
Hand-held disposable cauteries generally have body parts made of PVC plastic, and are powered by conventional dry cell batteries contained within the body of the hand-held disposable cautery. Depending on size, either AA size or AAA size batteries are most commonly used, providing direct current. Other parts, such as electrical connectors, a spring compressing the batteries, and a switch are also contained within the disposable cauteries. In the case of a single temperature cautery, an on/off switch activated by depressing a button in the cautery is usually used. In the case of a variable temperature cautery, a rheostat variable resistor switch is often used, activated and adjusted by a sliding button in the body of the cautery. These hand-held disposable cauteries are made much like a penlight, except the cauteries have a hot wire tip in place of a light bulb.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,613,682 issued to Naylor on Oct. 19, 1971 teaches a disposable hand-held cautery operated by internal batteries, much in the manner of a penlight.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,342, issued to Eugene Zamba and Lynan Zamba, on Feb. 15, 1985, teaches a hand-held disposable cauterizing device with a variable temperature cautery tip.
Disposable cauteries have developed a multitude of other nonmedical uses due to their portable nature and their relatively inexpensive cost, including use for clipping dog and cat claws, and repair of fly fishing lures that are damaged on location at fishing sites. Further, disposable hand-held cauteries have made cauteries available in medical situations, such as emergency sites, where electricity is not available.
Prior art of disposable cauteries has demonstrated several problems that have limited the utility and market for disposable cauteries. Indeed, the variable temperature disposable cautery has not even entered production yet, in part because of such problems. These problems are addressed by the present invention. The existing problems include: a shortened shelf life in wet or humid conditions (because humidity and water undermine the life of the batteries that are installed in the cauteries when they are made); a tendency for the disposable cauteries to short out and lose their function when submerged in blood or other fluids in the surgical field; unhygienic conditions caused by the device when blood and other body fluids enter the body of the device around the on/off button; an inability to properly clean the device for re-use once blood and other body fluids have entered into the internal portions of the device; a tendency by some medical users to attempt to re-sterilize and re-use the device (under conditions where effective sterilization is impossible); and an inability to fully exploit the devices in emergency or primitive medical situations since contact with wet or humid conditions tend to deactivate and destroy the device when water contacts the batteries.